The North East Collaborative Outreach Programme Impact Review

The North East Collaborative Outreach Programme (NECOP) is a collaboration of all of the colleges and universities in the North East, working together to make a rapid improvement in higher education progression rates.

colleges universities • • • • Cleveland College of Art and Design • College • • • Prior Pursglove and Stockton • Sixth Form College • • • Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College • • • Redcar and Cleveland College • Gateshead College • Stockton Riverside College • Hartlepool College of Further Education • • • Tyne Coast College • Following the commencement of funding in January 2017, the institutions involved in NECOP have worked together to create FutureMe. This high quality programme of interventions supports young people in years 9-13 or equivalent who have been identified as unlikely to progress to higher education, despite having the academic ability to do so. developing a collaboration NECOP has been developed in partnership with the five universities and 17 colleges in the region, as part of a national project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.1 Through its FutureMe programme of activities, NECOP is working with young people who reside in areas where progression to higher education is low generally, and especially low given GCSE attainment. Acting as an impartial source of advice, NECOP equips young people with knowledge on the full range of higher education options available, and supports them in making informed decisions about their future. working with young people Across the region a team of Project Co-ordinators and Higher Education Ambassadors have been working with schools who support young people residing in target areas. The school based programme has been developed around a Regional Progression Framework which outlines key learning outcomes related to higher education progression. The Regional Progression Framework has been mapped to both the Careers Development Institute framework and the Gatsby Benchmarks for Good Careers Guidance to demonstrate how NECOP can support schools to deliver meaningful information, advice and guidance for their pupils in relation to higher education. Targeted students have been offered a range of support and activities to encourage them to think about their future options, including:

Online tutoring from A range of Higher Education undergraduate students to Face to face mentoring sessions with undergraduate Ambassador sessions to give support young people with young people key information GCSE Maths and English, as students to support aspiration raising. and advice from recent well as raising aspirations. graduates.

In all of the colleges a NECOP target cohort has been identified and College Activity Delivery Plans have been created, to support over 3000 students. Colleges will deliver a variety of activity according to the needs of the cohort, existing provision and where NECOP funding could add the greatest value. Examples of activity on offer include masterclasses, career advice clinics, self-confidence/resilience workshops and higher education application advice and support. By working intensively with Level 2 and 3 learners the activities will encourage more young people to extend their education to Level 4 and beyond.

1. For more information about the National Collaborative Outreach Programme see http://www.hefce.ac.uk/sas/ncop/. The result of NECOP’s collaborative work in 2017 is a progressive, intensive programme of FutureMe activities for target students across the North East region. regional projects As well as the activity that has been delivered in schools and colleges, discrete projects are being delivered across the region to address specific issues. These have been led by universities and colleges involved in NECOP working in partnership with community organisations and employers. There are currently seven projects running across the region.

Some of the issues projects have focused on include:

Creating support for teachers Supporting young people Linking with key employers related to STEM progression with personal development in the region to support opportunities, linking careers and resilience. working class boys. to the curriculum.

Beneficiaries of these projects will include up to: 3970 600 400 young people teachers parents/carers demonstrating impact To allow NECOP to develop an understanding of which interventions have the greatest impact to support higher education progression, a programme theory has been developed. This will allow NECOP to be evaluated as part of an academic study using theory based evaluation methods which will determine why and how impact was achieved.

The evaluation has been designed to be both formative and summative so that a detailed understanding of what works and why can be gained in the short term, and longer term tracking of student destinations can take place through robust data analysis.

The results of the programme evaluation will help shape the future design of all activities and interventions with young people.

/futuremenortheast futureme_ne In 2017... 2337 young people

engaged in FutureMe activities delivered by NECOP in 6727 89 target wards. target young people of these young across 92 target people... wards were identified by colleges and schools to take part in FutureMe activity. 99.8% 92% reside in reside in IMD POLAR3 quintile quintile 1 and 1 areas2 2 areas3

FutureMe activities were delivered to young people in years 9 -13 or equivalent:

Year 12 Year 13 Post Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 (or equivalent) (or equivalent) Secondary*

20.7% 14.5% 20.4% 12.3% 21.9% 10.2% *(Level 2 and 3 learners)

during the ‘futureme is…’ 506 regional marketing campaign online sessions 37.5% 225,300

During the pilot phase of online tutoring - ...impressions were made through ... of parents in the North 224 students from 17 schools completed mobile apps to 13-19 year olds East were reached through a total of supported 506 online sessions in NECOP target wards. radio messaging. by a team of 48 undergraduate tutors.

90 buses from NECOP schools 80% of target wards and colleges were supported to attend a UCAS conference about inspiring choices 87 and progression to staff higher education.

...were exposed to messages were used to promote about higher education through positive messages about outdoor advertising. higher education.

DATA NOTE: All data is correct as of January 2018. 2 The POLAR3 classification looks at how likely young people are to participate in higher education and how this varies. Students from quintile 1 are the least likely to participate. 3 IMD (Index of Multiple Deprivation) measures relative deprivation in England, including Education, Skills and Training Deprivation. Areas which fall in quintiles 1 and 2 are the most deprived.